RBV's Niko Cortez fills in for best friend

VISTA — Niko Cortez and Daviante Sayles have been best friends since their freshman year.

Now high school seniors, they still spend nights at each other’s house and, as Sayles puts it, “eat cookies and McDonald’s.” They practice together and lift weights together and, as Rancho Buena Vista football coach Paul Gomes describes it, “They’re always like a husband and wife, bantering back and forth.”

Yes, they fight, too. About who is stronger (Cortez bench-presses 330 pounds). About who is faster (Sayles runs the 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds).

“We argue about the dumbest stuff,” said Sayles, who is faster but not stronger.

Said Cortez: “He’s my boy. I love that kid.”

Mushy enough for you?

It gets even better.

But first, it got worse. On Sept. 28, Sayles tore his left ACL in the third quarter of an eventual loss to El Camino — only he didn’t know it yet. Thinking he had suffered a mere knee sprain, the speedy running back returned three weeks later against San Pasqual.

On the third play of the night, Sayles reinjured his knee. His remarkable senior campaign (300 yards in back-to-back games; 1,164 yards and 15 touchdowns in five games overall) was finished. Without the San Diego Section’s leading rusher, the Longhorns’ turnaround season — RBV had broken an 18-game losing streak with a Sept. 14 victory against Scripps Ranch — was in jeopardy.

“I was really bummed out and sad for him,” Cortez said. “It just sucked to lose him because he’s such a big weapon with his speed and everything.”

Still, the Longhorns and their run-heavy offense had to move on. So they turned to Cortez, who as the team’s starting fullback had been blocking for his best friend.

In Cortez’s first game as RBV’s primary ball carrier, he rushed for 158 yards and two touchdowns on 32 carries, leading the Longhorns to a 36-0 shutout of Vista. The second-year varsity player, who totaled only 86 carries last season, was just getting started.

In the six games since Sayles was hurt, Cortez has piled up 988 yards on just 143 carries. RBV has gone 4-2 during that stretch, including a 52-33 first-round playoff win over favored Chula Vista last week. Cortez rushed 33 times for 287 yards and a career-high five touchdowns.

Cortez will see another heavy dose of carries tonight in the quarterfinals against Grossmont. A victory would put the Longhorns, who finished 0-10 last year, in the semifinals for the first time since 2007 — a very real possibility, even without the services of Sayles. Cortez, who at 5-feet-8, 185 pounds runs through and around defenders, has picked up where the more elusive Sayles left off.

One teammate, in particular, couldn’t be happier for the affable Cortez, who bears a tattoo of an Aztec warrior on his right biceps — to show, he said, “I don’t really give up” — and seemingly can’t start a sentence without laughing.

“We knew what Niko could do,” Sayles said. “When I got hurt I just knew that Niko was about to come in. He knows how to run the ball already. There was no doubt that he can do it all.

“He runs people over, gets upfield. He’s the type of person that you don’t want to get in his way.”

The same could be said of new starting fullback Reece Conney, who also doubles as starting middle linebacker, and a much-improved offensive line. Those blockers have benefited from the first-year leadership of Gomes, a former Santa Margarita assistant and Escondido head coach who arrived at RBV with a strength and conditioning program unlike any they’d seen.

“We do our weightlifting program the whole year round,” Gomes said. “We lift in season, we lift game day. I don’t care if there’s a game or not. It pays off.”

Linemen who could barely bench-press 135 pounds are now hoisting close to 300 pounds. Running backs who once danced at the line of scrimmage have ditched the lateral stalling for one-cut-and-go. Cortez, who added more than 100 pounds to his bench press and upped his squat from 350 to 510, has evolved from the raw runner he was in the offseason into a load.

As much fun as he’s having at running back, Cortez admits the Longhorns’ dream season is missing a key ingredient. Sayles, who is scheduled to undergo knee surgery Nov. 28, would look much better burning opponents on the field than patrolling the sidelines in street clothes, breaking down game film and pointing out holes in the defense to Cortez.

“Since I’m a running back, I always miss fullback, like getting those pancake blocks and always blocking for Daviante,” Cortez said. “It’s better having both of us on the field rather than just one of us. I love blocking for Daviante.”